'I know how to suffer and come through torture to win. Does Hatton?'

The Mexican light welterweight Jose Luis Castillo insists he will knock out Ricky Hatton in Las Vegas on Saturday

In sauna-like heat in a congested downtown gym, Jose Luis Castillo subjects himself to a familiar and torturous regime. "I like to suffer," he says through an interpreter, smiling. "This prepares me for war, which is what it will be when I face Ricky Hatton." The comparison is apt, for his sparring sessions are sometimes difficult to distinguish from the real thing, and against the world's leading light welterweight he knows he will be engaged in furious frontline fighting from the first bell. "This is the way we fight, both of us, and I am ready," Castillo says. "I have the heart of a lion. This fight will end in a small death for Hatton."

The phrase used by Mexicans to describe boxing's most stunning climax, the knockout, which Castillo predicts he will inflict next weekend at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, is chillingly enhanced by close